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Sylvia Bartell

A corporate attorney, Sylvia focuses her practice on electric regulation. She counsels a variety of clients in the energy industry, including transmission companies, renewable/electric power generation investors and developers, vertically integrated utilities, and commercial and industrial customers.

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On February 1, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order titled Imposing Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our Northern Border (Canadian Tariff Order),[1] which, inter alia, imposed a 10 percent import tariff on “energy or energy resources” that “are products of Canada.”[2] Additional detail on this order can be found here. Although delayed during negotiations between the US and Canada,[3] the Canadian Tariff Order, including its 10% energy import tariff, ultimately went into effect on March 4, 2025. On March 6, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order exempting goods qualifying under the United States-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement (USMCA) from the Canadia Tariff Order effective 12:01 a.m. on March 7, 2025. However, the President has indicated that the 10% tariff on such goods will resume on April 2, 2025.

At its latest open meeting on February 20, 2025, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order directing PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (PJM) and the PJM Transmission Owners (PJM TOs) to demonstrate why the PJM Tariff’s lack of clear rules for co-location arrangements is acceptable or to explain the Tariff changes they would propose to address co-location issues (Show Cause Order). FERC’s Order is focused on the PJM region because there are several contested FERC proceedings involving co-location arrangements in PJM. However, FERC has indicated that it intends to act quickly on co-location arrangements across its jurisdiction. Accordingly, the results of the PJM Show Cause proceeding will likely serve as precedent in other RTO and non-RTO regions under FERC’s jurisdiction. 

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) recently approved the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) request to expand registration and compliance requirements to inverter-based resources (“IBRs”) that meet or exceed 20 MVA and are interconnected at or above 60 kV.  This will impact certain wind, solar, battery, and fuel cell facilities that were previously too small to be required to register with NERC.

At its May 13, 2024 open meeting the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) unanimously approved Order No. 1977,[1] which updates the process FERC uses when exercising its transmission siting authority under Section 216 of the Federal Power Act, as amended by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA). 

At its May 13, 2024 open meeting, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a groundbreaking final rule—Order No. 1920[1] —requiring public utilities to undertake new long-term regional transmission planning over a 20-year horizon and allocate the cost of selected transmission projects in a manner that corresponds to the benefits they provide. 

NERC recently filed rule changes with FERC that propose to significantly expand NERC registration and compliance requirements to inverter based resources, such as renewable energy and battery facilities, that historically were too small to be subject to such requirements.  NERC’s proposed rule changes are one of the latest developments in NERC’s multi-year effort to address the “reliability gap” associated with these types of resources.

Earlier this summer, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) introduced a groundbreaking order—Order No. 2023—aimed at reforming the generator interconnection process in response to the evolving landscape of energy resources, market dynamics, and emerging technologies across the nation.

Industry reaction to the substance of the new rules has been mixed, but it is…

As the cold weather season approaches, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) are taking action to prevent a repeat of the devastating electric power outages that rocked Texas and the Midwest at the beginning of this year.

In February 2021, electric power generators and millions of customers…